


A Time of Unrest

by Rhinozilla



Series: Detroit 07 [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hank Anderson & Connor Friendship, Hank Anderson Swears, Let these boys rest, Post-Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Protective Hank Anderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 02:58:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18983836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhinozilla/pseuds/Rhinozilla
Summary: It's been three days since the night of the revolution, and things are finally calming down enough for Hank to go home and get some decent shut eye. But it's also been three days since he last saw or spoke with Connor, and when he turns up, he looks just as tired and worn out as Hank feels.





	A Time of Unrest

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little decompression fic taking place immediately after the peaceful ending. I wanted to write the boys getting a breather after such a high intensity sequence of events. They need a break.

In the three days since the peaceful android revolution shook Detroit, Hank could probably count the hours that he spent at the office on one hand, and most of those hours had been to grab coffee, a cat nap, and new orders from Fowler. It had been all hands on deck once the evacuation order went out. Despite Markus and Jericho being belligerently peaceful and almost maliciously cooperative, violence had skyrocketed all over the city. Most of the general public couldn’t get their asses out of the city fast enough, but there were pockets of anti-android riots that had broken out and burned through parts of the city as the stubbornly bigoted dug in their heels.

So here they were, on day fucking four, and Hank was finally able to sit at his desk long enough to look around and take a tally on his fellow officers. The ones who were still there looked as ragged and dead on their feet as he felt. More desks were empty than were occupied as they tried to maintain the unstable peace on the streets. FBI, SWAT, and other military uniforms that he couldn’t be bothered to distinguish from each other were ghosting through the bullpen periodically.

Chris was still out on patrol. Tina had shoved all of her paperwork onto Gavin’s desk in order to make enough room on her own to pillow her head on her arms and sleep. Gavin should have still been out on recovery leave for the beat down Connor had given him in the evidence room, but due to circumstances, Fowler had let himself be talked into sending him out with Ben on patrols. Either way, Tina’s pile of paperwork was just pebbles on the already present mountain on his desk.

The desk across from Hank’s was clean, empty, and vacant. He hated it.

Hank picked up a few of his back burner case files and plopped them over on the empty desk, just to give it the appearance of use, that somebody was supposed to be in that chair, and somebody was expected to come back to work at that desk.

WE DON’T BLEED THE SAME COLOUR.

He paused, his eye catching on the words scribbled on his display. He frowned and sat back in his chair, glancing across the various stickers, notes, and slogans that he had taped to the display over the last few years. He folded his arms as he re-read each one, feeling the phantom anger and hatred toward androids fizzling grey and dull at the edge of his memory. Seemed kind of ironic that that garbage littered so much of the screen that the monitor was practically useless now.

“Hmph,” he grunted in disgust with his past self and looked at the clock.

Fifteen more minutes and he would finally be off the clock. He’d only made it out to his house in the past three days long enough to make sure it was still standing and to take care of Sumo. A hot shower and his bed were calling to him hard, but under the exhaustion, a snag of worry was still holding him up.

He hadn’t seen or spoken with Connor in three days, not since the morning immediately after the revolutionary night outside the Chicken Feed. There hadn’t really been time to track him down, and if Hank was busy, then Connor had to be up to his neck in it too out there. Same shit, different side of the field. He hoped the guy was all right, wherever he was and whatever he was up to. He had to admit he’d developed a soft spot for the android. He swore it was those damn puppy eyes, and the plastic bastard knew it.

Hank flattened the tired frown off his face as he sat forward and started picking at the corner of one of the anti-android stickers on the display. The heat from the monitor had baked the adhesive onto the screen, and most of the stickers came apart and only partially peeled away as he tried to remove them. Even the ones that successfully came away still left tacky rectangles of residual glue on the screen. He fetched a bottle of screen cleaner and managed to rub away most of it.

His asshole self had scribbled WE DON’T BLEED THE SAME COLOUR in red marker directly onto the display, and the ink put up a hell of a fight against the cleaning solution.

“Ah, c’mon, Hank, really?” he hissed to himself, scrubbing at the hateful words.

In the end, he managed to erase most of the ink, though faint, pink lines remained, and he could still clearly read them from where he sat. Well, maybe at least Connor and the other patrol androids wouldn’t see it…Ah Hell of course they would with their super robot eyes…but maybe they’d also see that he’d tried to get rid of it. Effort had to count for something, right?

That was IF Connor or any of the patrol androids decided to stick around. He wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t.

The officers on the next shift were starting to trickle in. Most didn’t look like they’d entirely recovered since their last shift, but that was just tough shit. They were all exhausted, and Hank figured that’d become a perpetual state for the next several weeks at least. At any rate, their arrival meant his departure, and he grimaced as he climbed out of his chair to his feet. His back and knees cracked ungratefully, and he walked over to Tina’s desk, kicking the corner lightly with one foot.

Tina twitched and slowly unfolded her top half from the desk surface. A sticky note was stuck to her jaw, and the sleeve of her jacket had left perfect crease lines on her cheek.

“Hey.” He tapped his fingers on the desk as he waited for her to fully wake up. “Quittin’ time.”

Tina sat up with a wince, rubbing her neck and swatting at the paper on her face until it fell away. “Hm, great, yeah…” She looked around tiredly. “No robot overlords yet?”

“Not yet.” Hank shook his head. “Maybe tomorrow.”

She snorted and gingerly stretched in her seat. “Has Terminator come back?”

Hank frowned. “Connor isn’t here.”

Tina grunted, slowly standing. “Probably for the best right now. Things are…” She gestured vaguely. “Fucky.” She looked to Hank and seemed to read something in his face that he didn’t mean to show. “Hey, maybe once things unfuck themselves, he’ll get to come back…if he wants to…because they…have wants…now…Christ.” She rubbed her face. “I’m babbling. I’m going home now. See you later, Lieutenant.”

Hank just gave her a nod and took his time getting his jacket so they wouldn’t have to walk out together. It gave him enough time to once again see the empty desk beside his, and his poor mood soured a little further.

The sun was only just past the center of the sky when he stepped outside, and the light bounced off the snow like knives at his eyes. It felt like it should be three in the morning…or at least not so cheery, top-of-the-fucking-morning sunshine all over the place. He grumbled to himself as he made it into the less aggravating shadows of the parking garage, rummaging his keys from his pocket. Somebody had parked too close to the driver’s side of his car, and he couldn’t get the door open.

He gave a loud, long suffering groan as he moved to the passenger side, bracing himself to wiggle across the passenger side to the driver’s seat. He clicked the fob to unlock it, but there were no answering clicks in the car, though the lights briefly flickered in acknowledgement. His car was unlocked…Sleep deprived or not, he knew he’d locked it. One hand drifted to his gun at his hip as he squinted at the car. No broken windows, no other signs of forced entry. He could even still see his loose change in the cup holder, so who would—

There was a body in the back seat.

The gun came out but was just as quickly shoved back into the holster as he recognized the glowing blue Cyberlife markings on the jacket the body was wearing.

“Jesus…” Hank popped open the back passenger door and reached in, turning on the interior light mounted to the ceiling of the cab. “Connor?”

Connor didn’t respond. He was lying on his back across the seat with his head closest to Hank and his legs folded up behind the driver’s seat. The LED on his temple was steadily cycling a calm blue, and his eyes were closed in an approximation of sleep or…rest mode or…whatever. Hank gave him a quick onceover and didn’t see any visible damage. No bullet holes or knife wounds or any spilled Thirium anywhere. He looked okay…So what the Hell?

Three days’ worth of shit had put Connor here, and Hank was reluctant to wake him up like this and find out first hand if a traumatized android would wake up swinging or not. Instead he backed out of the car and closed the door again. The sound didn’t rouse the android, and Hank gave a quick look around the garage. They were alone.

He went ahead and climbed into the front passenger seat, shimmying over to the driver’s side as originally planned before he found his little hitchhiker back there. After getting situated, he twisted around and reached for Connor’s arm.

“Hey, Connor.” He gave him a shake. “Connor.”

In the span of a half second, Hank was grateful for the seats between the two of them, as Connor did, in fact, wake up swinging. His whole body seemed to lock up as he left rest mode, and both fists came up defensively in front of his face. His LED did a quick light show of blue, yellow, red, yellow, and stayed there as he looked around with eyes that Hank might have described as wild and confused.

“Whoa, whoa, easy, shit.” Hank stopped touching him and held both hands in view. “You’re okay.”

Just as quickly as the panic response went up, as soon as Connor recognized Hank, he seemed to deflate, reclining back on the seat with a harsh exhale of air. He closed his eyes again and pushed the heels of his hands against his forehead. Hank waited for the LED to shift back to blue before speaking.

“You look like shit, kid. What the fuck happened?”

“I’m sorry, Hank.” Connor’s voice sounded heavy and stilted. “I didn’t think going inside the station was a wise course of action, and I don’t have…there wasn’t anywhere…else…for me to go.”

Hank frowned. “You break my locks?”

Connor lifted one hand from his face enough to meet Hank’s eyes. “No.”

Hank shrugged. “Then no harm, no foul.”

He kept an eye on him as Connor slowly levered himself up into a sitting position in the back seat.

“You all right?” Hank asked.

“I’m functioning.”

Hank snorted. “Barely, and that wasn’t my question. It’s been three days since I last saw you, and it’s been a hell of a three days.”

Connor made a low noise of agreement, straightening his jacket and shirt. His tie was long gone, and his clothes weren’t rumpled enough to seem like he’d been back there for more than an hour. His movements were awkward though, avoiding contact with certain sections of his clothes, though there weren’t any stains on them…or at least none that Hank’s eyes could see.

A beat of not entirely comfortable silence passed, and then Connor was reaching for the door handle.

“I should get moving. Things are still unsteady out there, and I only used your car to recharge for a few hours since I figured it was the safest place to go unseen—“

“Connor,” Hank interrupted. “Is this the most sleep you’ve gotten in three days?”

Something close to sheepish flitted across Connor’s face as he averted his eyes. “Five. The days leading up to the night of the revolution were…also tense.”

“Yeah, I know. I was there.” Hank dropped his arm along the back of the front seat. “I’m heading home for some shut eye myself. You can crash on my couch to recharge, more comfortable than that back seat.”

Connor looked uncertain, his hand still on the door handle.

Hank nodded toward the police building. “Or there’s always the charging stations inside. Most of ‘em in there are too tired to put up much fight. I don’t think they’ll hassle you. We all know what you did that night.”

Connor eyed the building briefly before leaning back in the seat, obviously not finding that alternative very appealing. Kid looked exhausted. Hank put one hand on the steering wheel and set his jaw.

“All right, you’re coming home with me.”

“Lieutenant—“

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re still my partner, and that means I’ve got your back. Right now, that also means I’m not letting you plug yourself into the wall in there like a recharging cellphone. We’re going home, now get up here.” He smacked the passenger seat backrest with his free hand. “I’m not chauffeuring you.”

It was a testament to his low power status that Connor didn’t make a smart remark. Instead, he got out of the car’s back seat and all but fell into the front passenger seat. Closing the car door seemed to take the rest out of him, and he slumped a bit against the back of the seat.

“Thank you, Hank.” He looked at his hands folded in his lap. “I wasn’t sure…in the fallout of the events this week...It has been difficult to predict what human responses would be to this…shift.”

“I thought adapting to human unpredictability was one of your features?” Hank said jokingly, sliding the key into the ignition and turning on the engine.

Connor smirked and gave a short shake of his head. “Even my advanced software has limits.” He turned much-too-sincere eyes to Hank. “I have been pleasantly surprised by you and others’ empathy and compassion toward the androids during this unrest.”

This conversation was getting too honest, and Hank was tired.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m a real saint. Now shut up until we get home; I’m getting a headache.”

He backed the car out of his parking spot and pointed it toward the exit. Just as it rolled out into that vindictive sunlight again, Connor spoke.

“When you say the other officers know what I did, are you referring to the events of the revolution or to my altercation with Detective Reed in the evidence room?”

“Hm. Both.” Hank smirked. “Like I said, no one will give you any hassle.”

Connor’s expression was a mix of concerned and amused as he got more comfortable in the seat. “Detective Reed might…but if so, I could remind him of how such ‘hassling’ resulted last time and that it would not be in his best interest to repeat the event.”

Hank let out a low whistle, turning the car out onto the main road. “Well, I look forward to seeing how THAT conversation goes.”

For the first time in a long time, he was starting to look forward to a lot of things.


End file.
